by Nick Randall
“Will you leave, or will you stay?!” Ojo asked again, this time aiming the pistol directly between Ben’s eyes. “Answer me, damn you!”
“Stay, stay, I’ll stay!” Ben was now on the verge of tears, fearing for his life.
How stupid could have he been to think that Ojo would actually let him go?!
“Good, good!” Ojo laughed and quickly assumed a friendly disposition. “Of course we stay together! We’re brothers and that’s what brothers are for! Without each other, we are nothing! But together, we are everything! We are family, and families always stick together!”
The gang members who had gathered around all hollered and clapped their hands in agreement.
Ojo lowered the pistol and extended his hand to Ben. Ben looked at it, not sure what to do. Was this another trick?
“It’s okay, Benny boy,” said Ojo with a grin. “I was never going to hurt you.”
Ben reached out and grasped Ojo’s hand, and he lifted him up from the ground. Once Ben had been returned upright to his two feet, Ojo patted him on the shoulder and said, “You’re one of us, and you always will be, right?”
“Right,” Ben uttered meekly.
Then, to Ben’s complete surprise, Ojo returned the Glock 17 to his hand.
“You’ll need that,” Ojo said. “Because I have a task for you.”
Task? Ben thought.
“Pills, Dominic!” Ojo called out.
Ojo’s younger brother, Dominic, emerged from the gang members. Like his older sibling, he was short but fierce and covered in tattoos. He cradled a Remington 870 shotgun in his arms, no doubt stolen from the prison.
As Ojo’s only blood relative in the group, Dominic was essentially his right hand man and confidant. The two brothers had committed a lot of crimes together in their lives and were always close from when they were small children. It was rare that they were apart.
Next emerged Pills, another member of the gang and no less friendly looking than the others.
“What do you need, bro?” Dominic asked.
“Brother, I want you and Pills to take Benny boy here,” Ojo ordered. “And I want the three of you to head an hour’s walk east. Scout the area for food, ammo, medicine, or whatever the hell else we need. Be quick about it. Got that?”
“Got it,” Dominic nodded affirmatively.
Ben frowned. For now the escape would have to wait. He realized in that moment that not only had he not escaped anything, he had only found himself in deeper waters with this gang than he was in previously.
There was no freedom with this gang for him.
Chapter 4
Josie and Roy were laying together in bed, two candles burning on the dresser, one on the night stand, casting a dim glow across the room. Roy was holding her hand, but his expression was elsewhere. She looked over at him.
“What are you thinking about over there?”
“What else we can do to make this place safer… and maybe how we can solve our water problem,” he grunted.
Just then, Alex closed the front door to the house and walked past their bedroom door. Josie called to her:
“All clear out there, Private?” Josie asked.
“All clear, sir,” Alex replied, before heading into the bathroom.
“Good, bed time, soldier!” Josie shouted after him with a smile.
Roy looked over at her with a curious expression.
“She’s taking after her dad, after all, huh?” he asked, clearly convinced of it.
“She’s adapting to the situation,” Josie said, speaking up to the ceiling. “Anything she wants to do that will keep her mind occupied and keep her active, I’m okay with. Her body isn’t doing well on the insulin restriction.”
“Oh,” Roy said, turning back to the ceiling and pondering.
“Did you give her that book back? I gave it to her, you know.”
“So she lied about finding it on your shelf? And no, I haven’t finished reading it yet. And frankly, Roy, I’m not happy about how this book is informing our daughter about the things you had to go through. I’m really not happy that just in reading it myself, I’m learning more about the war than you’ve ever told me. Seriously, you’ve never told me anything about what it was like over there.”
“There’s some things you’re better off not knowing.”
“Oh, but your ten-year-old daughter is okay knowing?”
“It’s late, hon. We’ll talk in the morning.”
* * *
Six hours later in the middle of the night, Roy jolted awake in the dark.
He had heard a loud CRASH from somewhere in the house followed by muffled male voices.
He turned to Josie. Her eyes were wide open. She heard it too.
“What was that?” she mouthed anxiously.
“Go to Alex’s room, now,” he ordered quietly, jumping out of bed and grabbing his 9mm Beretta 92FS from the nightstand, along with a small flashlight.
“And stay there!” he said, as she flew across the hall into their daughter’s room.
Roy held his pistol in front of him, staring down the sites, with the flashlight in the left hand crossed under his right, thumb pressed to the ‘On’ button, ready to blind whoever was inside the house.
Roy identified two or three male voices coming from downstairs.
He took one step down the wooden stairs before being reminded loudly that they were made of old, creaky wood. Suddenly the voices hushed.
“Screw it,” Roy said to himself under his breath, and kept the light off while he walked slowly and deliberately down the stairs, giving his eyes a chance to adjust to the pitch darkness.
His ears perked intently on every scratch and brush of clothing or feet, and he quickly isolated the sounds as coming from the far corner of the basement: the bunker door.
Upon reaching the lower level he glanced down the hallway: the front door was open to his right, and so was the bunker door in front of him.
The combat veteran took a deep breath in. He listened again in silence, without moving for what felt like hours, and slowly exhaled.
He could hear somebody breathing by the bunker door, just twenty or so feet away, down low to the ground. Even though his eyes were useless in this darkness, the intruder was obviously crouched and keeping his or her head down. Roy took another breath in, slowly, and raised his Beretta.
The Beretta 92, in all its variations, was a proven and reliable sidearm. Standard issue in the United States military since 1985, Roy preferred it due to his extensive experience with it in the military, its large capacity, and the fact that its limited recoil meant faster re-acquisition of the target and thus more accurate subsequent rounds, even when tracking a moving target, like the one that was about to be revealed in the dark. Roy kept this in mind as he tightened his grip, held his breath, and clicked on the flashlight.
A bright beam of light lit up a hooded figure, crouched next to the open bunker door.
A blur of motion from the figure as he or she tried to flee was halted by two hammered-on, DEAFENING gunshots from Roy’s Beretta that he fired on instinct.
Both bullets found their target and with a yell the hooded invader tumbled back down the staircase of the bunker where they vanished in the darkness.
Roy rushed over to the bunker door and aimed his flashlight inside to see the home invader was a man sprawled out on the cement floor, with two bullet holes in his torso and one arm splayed awkwardly underneath. The fingers twitched and the torso writhed as Roy stepped closer, silent as death, keeping his bright light shining on the intruder.
He descended the bunker’s staircase, his Beretta trained on the intruder’s head. He nudged the twitching body with his bare foot. No response.
He kicked it, and suddenly lost his balance as the intruder reached out and grabbed Roy around his left ankle, yanking him off his feet!
Roy didn’t know it, but the intruder was Dominic, and he emitted a violent scream as he clambered on top of Roy, who drove his knee up int
o his attacker’s head.
Dominic screeched, and in the brief instant that the flashlight shone on his face, Roy could see a partially-severed tongue bleeding profusely from between mangled lips.
His martial arts training kicking in, Roy wrapped his legs underneath and around Dominic’s neck, and twisted his hips to bring the back of his head cracking against the floor.
Dominic clutched and pulled at Roy’s hair and shirt in desperation, struggling to find purchase in the pitch dark illuminated only by the single flashlight.
“Ben, Pills!” Dominic shouted, words mangled by blood and tongue and broken teeth. “Go get the others! Go! Go!”
His words were cut off as Roy pushed his head against the pavement with his left hand, pressed the muzzle of the Beretta to his temple with his right, and then shot him point blank.
The top of Dominic’s head erupted as the deadly jacketed hollow point 9mm bullet punched through his skull. He fell limp, dead.
Roy heard the smacking sound of shoes running upstairs. He swung around with his gun raised and ascended the staircase.
Ben and Pills were in the house and bolting for the door to make their escape. Upon reaching the top of the bunker stairs, Roy fired two more rounds after them, but the wraith-like figures of Ben and Pills had already exited the front door and were taking off running down the road as fast as they could.
Roy ran to the end of the door and continued firing his Beretta after them, but the two home invaders had disappeared into the darkness.
In the ensuing silence, Roy heard Alex crying in her room.
* * *
Ben stopped running, exhausted, only for Pills to shove his gun between his shoulder blades and cause him to stumble forward.
“Keep moving!” Pills barked.
“What do we do?!” Ben cried out. “What do we tell Ojo?! He’ll crucify us for what happened to Dom!”
“Shut up!” Pills shouted and waved his gun. “We keep moving!”
It took a good hour of trekking through the woods for the two to make it back to the gang’s base of operations at the abandoned town. They both stayed silent during the journey, with Pills constantly shoving Ben forward when he would stop or slow down.
It was dawn and the sun was shining over the mountain range in the distance when a physically tired Ben and Pills had returned to the gang.
Ojo was pacing back and forth impatiently in the garage there. He moved so quick like he had somewhere to be but he also had that back-and-forth prison cell pace that goes nowhere. His black hair was loose and the other gang members gave him a wide space.
Since Ojo was a small man, seeing him pace from far away like that made him look like a child having a fit about a toy that had broke, only in this case it wasn't a toy that was broken and he had killed far too many people in his lifetime to be considered a child by any standard.
Upon seeing Ben and Pills arrive but not Dominic, Ojo quickly stomped over to them. The other gang members gathered anxiously around.
“What the hell took you so long, did I not say be quick about it?” Ojo snapped. “And where the hell is Dominic?!”
Ben cautioned a few steps sideways. Ojo stepped sideways with him and then shoved him back.
“Where the hell is my baby brother, Benny boy?” Ojo asked, shoving Ben back again. “Huh?”
“He’s dead,” Ben said, closing his eyes and expecting Ojo to gut him with a hidden knife right then and there.
“What do you mean he’s dead?” Ojo asked in disbelief.
“I mean…he got shot,” Ben whimpered.
“You lying piece of shit where is my little brother?!” Ojo exclaimed in a fury, his face reddening. “You better be lying! Tell me you’re lying!”
“Hold on, Ojo,” Pills interjected. “This wasn’t exactly Benny’s fault, or mine. It was Dom’s and Dom’s alone.”
Ojo stepped right up to Pills and looked him in the eyes. He was at least six inches shorter than Pills but he still wasn’t intimidated by him one bit.
“What the hell are you saying, amigo?” Ojo sneered.
“I’m saying it was Dom who got himself killed,” Pills responded. “Dumbass knocked over something when he went into the house and alerted whoever lived there, and he paid the price. They shot him dead and tried to shoot us.”
“What house?” Ojo asked.
“Some homesteader’s place,” Pills said. “Dom wanted to take a look inside to see what they had.”
“I said to scout the area for supplies, not to go breaking into people’s houses!” Ojo screamed.
“Hey man, I’m sorry,” said Pills, putting up his hands in submission. “I truly am. It was an accident and it won’t happen again. Next time we’ll just be more careful.”
“It’s okay, Pills,” Ojo seemed to calm down. “I know you’re an honest man and I accept your apology.”
Suddenly, before anybody could react, Ojo whipped out a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum revolver he had concealed in his back and shot Pills through the head!
Blood gushed from Pills’ skull as he fell back and hit the ground hard. Each of the gang members shuddered and stepped back, with the exception of Python who simply grinned in amusement.
Ojo spat disrespectfully over Pills’ corpse and hissed, “Sorry, amigo, but you’re no longer a part of the family.”
Next Ojo turned the revolver and his merciless gaze over to Ben.
Ben stared down the cold dark bore of the .357 Magnum that was aimed right between his eyes, believing he was staring into his own imminent death.
He's going to kill me! Ben thought. I have to do or say something!
“Wait!” he blurted out. “That house had food, ammo, water, medicine! Lots of it! Enough for all of us! I can show you!”
Ojo lowered the gun a bit and after a moment said, “You’ve got ten seconds to explain further, Benny boy.”
“It had everything!” Ben was in tears, in absolute fear for his life. “Shelves upon shelves of food! Farm land! Water! Ammo! Medicine! Gasoline! Shelves and shelves of everything we need! Literally everything! I’m telling you, it was a frickin’ gold mine!”
“Everything, you say?” Ojo asked.
“Yes, everything!” Ben cried. “We could live there for months, I’m telling you!”
Ojo looked at Ben for a moment longer before finally lowering the revolver even further until it was pointed at the ground.
“Alright, amigos,” he announced to the other gang members standing around. “If Benny boy here is telling the truth, we might have just found what we’re looking for. But mark my words, even if we don’t, those homesteading bastards will pay with their lives for what they did to little Dom.”
Ojo turned back to Ben and said, “Well, show us the way, Benny boy.”
Chapter 5
A pale, cold sun rose over the homestead, illuminating evidence of the night’s struggle.
Roy stood in the doorway of his daughter’s room, arms crossed, looking sternly at her curled up in her bed, white rabbit clutched to her chest. Josie was sitting next to her.
“They got in through the front door last night,” Roy said plainly.
There was nothing but utter silence from Josie and Alex.
“The latches weren’t busted, or even damaged,” he continued. “Which means somebody stupidly left the door unlocked.”
More silence from the bed.
“GET UP, ALEXANDRIA, ON YOUR FEET!” he yelled, making the walls vibrate.
Alex sprung out of bed and stood in front of her father, knobby knees trembling, her white rabbit hanging limply in one hand. She couldn’t make eye contact.
Josie stood up.
“Roy,” she started.
“Look at me!” he shouted, ignoring Josie.
Alex’s head jerked up, her mouth quivering, eyes looking at her father with both fear and guilt.
“How did they get in, Alex?! Huh?! You were the last one inside, didn’t you remember to lock and latch the front damned door?!�
� he shouted, gesturing wildly.
“Roy!” Josie screamed, throwing her hands out. “Stop! She’s sick! What are you doing?!”
Roy stepped forward and knelt next to Alex, who had curled up on the floor again and was crying loudly, rabbit clutched to her face. Josie tensed up and put a protective arm between them as Roy shouted a foot away from her head.
